Re: New partman-basicfilesystems debconf templates
On 20130727_122708, Rick Thomas wrote:
>
> On Jul 26, 2013, at 11:23 PM, Christian PERRIER wrote:
>
> >Hello Milan,
> >
> >I noticed that you added new templates to partman-basicfilesystems for
> >the following:
> >
> > * Warn if bootable partition is not ext2 on Pegasos machines.
> >Closes: #717511
> >
> >I'll turn these templates to translatable (they are not, yet) and mark
> >them for sublevel 4 or 5 (belong to "less common" architectures).
> >
> >However, before doing that, I'd like to use the same wording than
> >other similar templates (so that translations can be re-used).
> >
> >Particularly, the following:
> >
> >Template: partman-basicfilesystems/boot_not_first_partition
> >Type: boolean
> >Description: Go back to the menu and correct this problem?
> >Your boot partition is not located on the first partition of your
> >hard disk. This is needed by your machine in order to boot. Please go
> >back and use your first partition as a boot partition.
> >.
> >If you do not go back to the partitioning menu and correct this error,
> >the partition will be used as is. This means that you may not be able
> >to boot from your hard disk.
> >
> >We already have such a template, but it says "on the first PRIMARY
> >partition". Would it be wrong to add this "primary" word to the
> >templates you added?
>
> I may be sticking my nose in where it's not appropriate, but...
I am sticking my nose in where it doesn't belong, but ...
I had always supposed that the boot flag was required by DOS BIOS, and
only by DOS, and was required only because DOS was badly designed. I
know I have never set the boot flag on the root partition of my Debian
installs. Sometimes the flag is set automatically, sometimes not. I
have never had to reinstall, or jump through any hoops to get an
install to boot. I had lots of other problems but never that one. Is
Pegasos special, in that it resurrects (from DOS) this design flaw? And
when I install a dual boot, preserving a DOS partition that is already
installed, I am careful to keep the boot flag set on the DOS partition,
where I think it belongs.
Other opinions?
I have been wrong before on other topics.
Cheers
>
> The word "primary" refers to a peculiarity of the PC-style MBR
> partitioning scheme. I believe Pegasos uses a very different
> partitioning scheme, so adding "primary" would be incorrect and
> confusing.
>
> The Wikipedia article on Pegasos -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
> Pegasos says, "For hard disk drive booting the [Pegasos] Open
> Firmware requires an RDB boot partition that contains either an affs1
> or ext2 partition". Following the link to the Wikipedia article on
> RDB explains the differences between MBR and RDB partitioning. It
> says, "Because [with RDB] there is no limitation in partition block
> count, there is no need to distinguish primary and extended types and
> all partitions are equal in stature and architecture."
>
> I don't have a Pegasos machine, so I'm just repeating what I read by
> Googling, but I do have a number of PowerPC Macs running Debian and I
> know they don't use MBR partitioning, so my interest was piqued.
>
> Rick
>
>
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--
Paul E Condon
pecondon@mesanetworks.net
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